- Email: [email protected]
A rogues gallery
The Beautiful and the Damned: the Creation of Identity in 19th Century Photography An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK, showing until Oct 7, 2001. ew photographic exhibitions image, hand glued onto sturdy card. are as ambitious, enticing, and Ordinary people in the 1860s could, eclectic as this. 100 vintage therefore, own images of royalty, famous 19th-century photographs from public writers, poets, and great thinkers. Often and private collections have been these were painstakingly hand-tinted by brought together to explore the role painters of miniatures whose former of the portrait as a form of social reprework was annihilated by the popularity sentation and classification. Through its of cartes. Included here are posed studio obsession with phrenology, Victorian portraits of Dickens, Disraeli, Carlyle, society pioneered the study of the human face using photographic images to interpret the concept of character. Phrenology proposed the theory that moral and intellectual faculties could be located in different parts of the brain. Cranial calibrations were made to quantify the strengths and deficiencies of a person’s character, and photography supposedly made possible objective scrutiny of the human face. The world’s first photographic likeness emerged in 1839–40 with the invention and rapid commercial success of the daguerreotype. For the first time, millions of people could own a unique miniature photographic portrait of themselves. Sadly, this exhibition includes no daguerreotypes—most exhibits are paper images. With the development and production in the 1840s of the negative-positive process, photography became a powerful medium that was used to examine who we are. The Beautiful and the Patient at Bethlem Asylum by Henry Herring Damned offers us a rare glimpse (1855–56) into a vanished world; a metaphysical and Faraday—examples from the collecjourney through time and the faces that tion of the first Director of the National inhabited the microcosm of the camera Portrait Gallery, George Scharf. Cartes lens more than 100 years ago. We are were big business and between 1860 and invited to examine the Victorian visage, 1862 nearly 4 million images of Victoria discovering latent or hidden meanings were sold, leading to the phenomenon beneath the faded chemical blemishes. of cartomania. Cartes were available in The showcase is roughly arranged into booksellers, stationers, print sellers, and five themes: the family; mind and body; other fancy goods stores. The pleasure schooling society; the museum and of collecting cartes enabled the masses collecting; and crime and punishment. to indulge in a new visual genealogy; The cult of the celebrity was dissemipasting images of family members in nated by the mass production of the leather-bound albums akin to the family carte-de-visite, a small photographic
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THE LANCET • Vol 358 • September 22, 2001
Bible—a cherished heirloom, to be handed down through the generations. Among the scientific portraits here are the inmates of London’s Bethlem Asylum. Henry Herring’s photographs, from the 1850s, show us patients with acute melancholia, ruffianism homicide, and acute dementia. Apparently, these images were used to train doctors in the diagnosis of mental illness. Juxtaposed with these pictures are calotypes by the painter David Octavius Hill (1802–70) and the chemist Robert Adamson (1821–48) who collaborated between 1843 and 1847 to make portraits of leading academics and intellectuals working with the Free Church of Scotland. Their artfully composed images reveal men engrossed in profound philosophical contemplation. However, when viewed alongside the insane they become barely indistinguishable, which brings into question the use or misuse of the photograph to portray a certain “type”. Without captions or titles how might we tell one personality from the other? The work of Dr Duchenne de Boulogne (1806–75), who remarked, “The spirit is the source of the expression”, are featured. A scientist and devout catholic, he believed that a divine creator designed the human face and sought through a series of bizarre experiments and publications to reveal the real expression of a person. Duchenne applied moderate electric shocks to galvanise the facial nerves of his patients at the Saltpiètere Hospital, Paris, France. A book printed in 1856 shows some of these experiments. Duchenne’s sinewy hand appears in the black bordered oval plates, holding a probe to the face of a wild-haired, grimacing man. A docile (drugged?) woman raises an eyebrow in surprise as the probe tweaks her forehead. These are disturbing investigations and one cannot help feeling the vulnerability and fear of these people who were prodded and documented in the name of science. Many of the images hold an inherent weirdness over the viewer—not least, because of their great age and fragility which gives them a spectral attraction. Also, one is reminded of the disquieting, Bethlem Museum & Archive, Maudsley Hospital
A rogues gallery
1019
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.
DISSECTING ROOM
Discarded diagnoses Onanism ince Masters and Johnson, masturbation has become a kind of touchstone of sexual gratification. Human Sexual Response (1966) and their follow-up volume, Human Sexual Inadequacy (1970) were both decidedly products of the 1960s. Although once accurately described as “two of the worst written books in the English language”, these monographs helped create modern attitudes towards sexuality, and offered liberal western individuals blessed release from the guilt that playing with themselves might be harmful, or worse. Indeed, Masters and Johnson judged the dozens of copulating couples they witnessed, photographed, and analysed in terms of how their pleasure came up to the mark achieved by self-abuse. Although medical attitudes had been gradually relaxing in the decades before Masters and Johnson burst on the scene, for more than two centuries doctors and other anxiety makers had
S
1020
had a field day. Under the illchosen name of onanism (Onan had merely spilled his seed on the ground, in a fit of coitus interruptus), masturbation became something doctors needed to know about—though of course not to practise. It was at the root of so much suffering, disease, and degeneracy. An anonymous pamphlet of 1710, Onania, or the Heinous Sin of Selfpollution, first highlighted the unfortunate consequences of the evil habit. Medicine and morality were clearly coupled, as the wages of this sin were dire: disorders of the generative organs, of course, but also epilepsy, consumption, hysteria, and “meagre Jaws, and pale Looks, with feeble Hams and legs without Calves”. The Victorians made a particular fetish of onanism, linking it with most diseases, but most especially with insanity and imbecility. The rise of the psychiatric asylums during the period undoubtedly clinched the sad
the American, O S Fowler purported to identify a thief, liar, or a murderer just by the contours of the skull. Contained within a glass case are nine ambrotypes (collodion positives) taken in 1862 of arrested criminals. At first glance none of these people looks particularly threatening or fugitive, but lengthy exposure times often made sitters look nervously uncomfortable. When viewed by the suspicious eye of the law their flustered expressions invariably attested to their guilt. The list of crimes reads: pick pocket, warehouse breaking, stealing a watch, stealing bells and knockers— one wonders how such heinous crimes would be punished given the irrefutable photographic “evidence”! This exhibition presents a striking wealth of visual stimuli that is both repellent and attractive. It is a wonderful opportunity to peruse seldom-seen works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Oscar Reijlander, and Roger Fenton, to name but a few. Inevitably, there is some crossfertilisation of themes, but this makes the show all the more inspired. Most importantly, we are able to see parallel systems of facial classification, especially of criminals, that are still relevant in today’s modern world of digital images. Museum of Film, Photography and Television, Science and Society Picture Library
arcane source material in the surrealist’s cannibalised oeuvre during the 1920s and 1930s. Lewis Carroll, depicting Reginald Southey, a medical student, finds a natural precursor to this in a fascinating photograph. Southey is posed standing in profile (like a waxwork) against a rough canvas backdrop; his long-sleeved arm carefully placed upon the shoulder of a full human skeleton the same height as himself. The skeleton of a chimpanzee holding a stick clasps this. Below are the skulls of a gorilla and man arranged on a cloth. The image taken in 1858–59 predates Charles Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species. The photographer’s accidental fingerprint on the image adds an indelible mark; photography is used to record a tableaux of evolutionary ascendancy, of simian and human comparisons. Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, pioneered the use of the photocomposite to support his theory of eugenics; by collecting Reginald Southey, Medical Student (1858–59) images of family members over an by Lewis Carroll extended period he constructed socalled “typical” facial resemblance. gallery of murderers and their gaping During the industrial revolution victims lines one wall, their names villainy flourished in large cities. pencilled indecipherably in a florid Photography was soon enrolled and hand over the photographs. Despite the adapted in the identification of deviant horror of scrutinising the cadaver, the types. Cesare Lombroso and Alphonse viewer can appropriate the murderer Bertillon were quick to make use of and attempt to read into that face all the pocket-sized mug shot. A gruesome manners of evils. Phrenologists such as
Shaun Caton e-mail: [email protected]
association, Victorian alienists being shocked at the sight of so many inmates openly abusing themselves. Onanism provided a wonderful field for sexual surgery (clitoridectomy, circumcision, castration, cauterisation) and offered ingenious inventors the opportunity to design a wonderful array of electrical and mechanical contraptions to prevent the sly victims of the habit from polluting themselves. Doctors reported that many sufferers confessed in the privacy of the surgery, but, then, denial was hopeless, since a number of pathognomonic signs gave the game away. The shifty, haggard looks suggested the worst, as did spinal curvature, flabby muscles, and inadequate beard (curiously, onanism encouraged female beard growth). The vice also caused hairy palms. The next time you shake hands with someone who has hairy palms, spare a thought for the poor soul. Bill Bynum Wellcome Trust for the History of Medicine, University College London, London NW1 1AD, UK
THE LANCET • Vol 358 • September 22, 2001
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.
F
THE LANCET • Vol 358 • September 22, 2001
Bible—a cherished heirloom, to be handed down through the generations. Among the scientific portraits here are the inmates of London’s Bethlem Asylum. Henry Herring’s photographs, from the 1850s, show us patients with acute melancholia, ruffianism homicide, and acute dementia. Apparently, these images were used to train doctors in the diagnosis of mental illness. Juxtaposed with these pictures are calotypes by the painter David Octavius Hill (1802–70) and the chemist Robert Adamson (1821–48) who collaborated between 1843 and 1847 to make portraits of leading academics and intellectuals working with the Free Church of Scotland. Their artfully composed images reveal men engrossed in profound philosophical contemplation. However, when viewed alongside the insane they become barely indistinguishable, which brings into question the use or misuse of the photograph to portray a certain “type”. Without captions or titles how might we tell one personality from the other? The work of Dr Duchenne de Boulogne (1806–75), who remarked, “The spirit is the source of the expression”, are featured. A scientist and devout catholic, he believed that a divine creator designed the human face and sought through a series of bizarre experiments and publications to reveal the real expression of a person. Duchenne applied moderate electric shocks to galvanise the facial nerves of his patients at the Saltpiètere Hospital, Paris, France. A book printed in 1856 shows some of these experiments. Duchenne’s sinewy hand appears in the black bordered oval plates, holding a probe to the face of a wild-haired, grimacing man. A docile (drugged?) woman raises an eyebrow in surprise as the probe tweaks her forehead. These are disturbing investigations and one cannot help feeling the vulnerability and fear of these people who were prodded and documented in the name of science. Many of the images hold an inherent weirdness over the viewer—not least, because of their great age and fragility which gives them a spectral attraction. Also, one is reminded of the disquieting, Bethlem Museum & Archive, Maudsley Hospital
A rogues gallery
1019
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.
DISSECTING ROOM
Discarded diagnoses Onanism ince Masters and Johnson, masturbation has become a kind of touchstone of sexual gratification. Human Sexual Response (1966) and their follow-up volume, Human Sexual Inadequacy (1970) were both decidedly products of the 1960s. Although once accurately described as “two of the worst written books in the English language”, these monographs helped create modern attitudes towards sexuality, and offered liberal western individuals blessed release from the guilt that playing with themselves might be harmful, or worse. Indeed, Masters and Johnson judged the dozens of copulating couples they witnessed, photographed, and analysed in terms of how their pleasure came up to the mark achieved by self-abuse. Although medical attitudes had been gradually relaxing in the decades before Masters and Johnson burst on the scene, for more than two centuries doctors and other anxiety makers had
S
1020
had a field day. Under the illchosen name of onanism (Onan had merely spilled his seed on the ground, in a fit of coitus interruptus), masturbation became something doctors needed to know about—though of course not to practise. It was at the root of so much suffering, disease, and degeneracy. An anonymous pamphlet of 1710, Onania, or the Heinous Sin of Selfpollution, first highlighted the unfortunate consequences of the evil habit. Medicine and morality were clearly coupled, as the wages of this sin were dire: disorders of the generative organs, of course, but also epilepsy, consumption, hysteria, and “meagre Jaws, and pale Looks, with feeble Hams and legs without Calves”. The Victorians made a particular fetish of onanism, linking it with most diseases, but most especially with insanity and imbecility. The rise of the psychiatric asylums during the period undoubtedly clinched the sad
the American, O S Fowler purported to identify a thief, liar, or a murderer just by the contours of the skull. Contained within a glass case are nine ambrotypes (collodion positives) taken in 1862 of arrested criminals. At first glance none of these people looks particularly threatening or fugitive, but lengthy exposure times often made sitters look nervously uncomfortable. When viewed by the suspicious eye of the law their flustered expressions invariably attested to their guilt. The list of crimes reads: pick pocket, warehouse breaking, stealing a watch, stealing bells and knockers— one wonders how such heinous crimes would be punished given the irrefutable photographic “evidence”! This exhibition presents a striking wealth of visual stimuli that is both repellent and attractive. It is a wonderful opportunity to peruse seldom-seen works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Oscar Reijlander, and Roger Fenton, to name but a few. Inevitably, there is some crossfertilisation of themes, but this makes the show all the more inspired. Most importantly, we are able to see parallel systems of facial classification, especially of criminals, that are still relevant in today’s modern world of digital images. Museum of Film, Photography and Television, Science and Society Picture Library
arcane source material in the surrealist’s cannibalised oeuvre during the 1920s and 1930s. Lewis Carroll, depicting Reginald Southey, a medical student, finds a natural precursor to this in a fascinating photograph. Southey is posed standing in profile (like a waxwork) against a rough canvas backdrop; his long-sleeved arm carefully placed upon the shoulder of a full human skeleton the same height as himself. The skeleton of a chimpanzee holding a stick clasps this. Below are the skulls of a gorilla and man arranged on a cloth. The image taken in 1858–59 predates Charles Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species. The photographer’s accidental fingerprint on the image adds an indelible mark; photography is used to record a tableaux of evolutionary ascendancy, of simian and human comparisons. Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, pioneered the use of the photocomposite to support his theory of eugenics; by collecting Reginald Southey, Medical Student (1858–59) images of family members over an by Lewis Carroll extended period he constructed socalled “typical” facial resemblance. gallery of murderers and their gaping During the industrial revolution victims lines one wall, their names villainy flourished in large cities. pencilled indecipherably in a florid Photography was soon enrolled and hand over the photographs. Despite the adapted in the identification of deviant horror of scrutinising the cadaver, the types. Cesare Lombroso and Alphonse viewer can appropriate the murderer Bertillon were quick to make use of and attempt to read into that face all the pocket-sized mug shot. A gruesome manners of evils. Phrenologists such as
Shaun Caton e-mail: [email protected]
association, Victorian alienists being shocked at the sight of so many inmates openly abusing themselves. Onanism provided a wonderful field for sexual surgery (clitoridectomy, circumcision, castration, cauterisation) and offered ingenious inventors the opportunity to design a wonderful array of electrical and mechanical contraptions to prevent the sly victims of the habit from polluting themselves. Doctors reported that many sufferers confessed in the privacy of the surgery, but, then, denial was hopeless, since a number of pathognomonic signs gave the game away. The shifty, haggard looks suggested the worst, as did spinal curvature, flabby muscles, and inadequate beard (curiously, onanism encouraged female beard growth). The vice also caused hairy palms. The next time you shake hands with someone who has hairy palms, spare a thought for the poor soul. Bill Bynum Wellcome Trust for the History of Medicine, University College London, London NW1 1AD, UK
THE LANCET • Vol 358 • September 22, 2001
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.